


small, unattainable comforts

by bobtheacorn



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam overworks himself bc the boy be Like That, Gen, POV Adam Parrish, Past Child Abuse, Pining Ronan Lynch, Pre-Relationship, Ronan aggressively mother-hen's him, Sickfic, The Rest of the Gang is Mentioned and Present Toward the End, Vomiting, but like lowkey, shit they're both pining who am i kidding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-05 21:33:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18837205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bobtheacorn/pseuds/bobtheacorn
Summary: "Sit down. For fuck's sake, Parrish."The concrete is cold, once he gets down there. The relief it brings is swift. Adam feels like he's roasting from the inside out. His vision is blurry, gummy, until a palm rubs into his eye socket and wipes the tears away. Ronan's face is revealed - the sharp line of his nose, the downward pull of his mouth, the set of his jaw - the way his brow saysangryand his eyes sayworried."Why the fuck are you here?" Ronan snarls. His teeth are bared, the back of his fingers unnervingly gentle as he touches Adam's face again. He withdraws his hand like he's actually been burned.//Adam is muscling through.





	small, unattainable comforts

Virginia, like most places, has those temperamental spells during the early winter months where it will be too warm for proper snow until the rain comes out of the blue. And then it ices over for about a week before it all thaws away in a rush of warm air. Lather, rinse, repeat. It's a cycle during which the flu and other unsavory ailments thrive on the overburdened immune systems of those who don't have insurance or simply can't afford the preventive or curative medicines.

Guess which category Adam Parrish fall into?

That's a trick question.

It's both.

A head cold is one thing. They're easy enough to muscle through. A sore throat also isn't so bad. It's not like Adam is the talkative sort, and he's able to convey more than enough to Gansey or the others with nothing but a raised eyebrow when he needs to. Stomach bugs suck, for obvious reasons, but there's really nothing to do about those except sleep on the rug in the bathroom floor and wait it out.

This is, unfortunately, a multiple question with All of the Above bubbled in.

Adam is muscling through it, anyway.

\----

Something's not right.

Adam can say that with absolute certainty when it takes him twenty minutes longer than it should to do a simple oil change. He's been feeling sluggish and tired all day. School was a blur, and he doesn't remember taking half the notes that he probably should have, or what any of the homework assignments were, or if he passed that pop quiz or if he dreamed it, or even who he might have seen or spoken to.

But shuffling from one classroom to the other isn't particularly strenuous. He can do that on autopilot.

Now that he's been at the garage for the better part of the evening, bending and squatting and  _ working, _ his muscles feel like jello, shuddering under the lightest strain, and he's dizzy on top of everything else. Adam's breath heaves down his throat. It doesn't fill his lungs - maybe his stomach, maybe that empty place inside of him that his father knocked loose all those weeks ago that Cabeswater is slowly working to fill up, a tenuous trust building between them - so he sucks in another breath, and then another, and another.

He stands braced against the open hood of the car, body tense, shivering, until the dizziness passes over into the close, dangerous territory of nausea.

His stomach lurches and turns.

Panic prickles up the back of his throat.

Adam takes another breath, this one shorter than the last. He can't throw up into a client's engine. But if he moves so much as an inch, he knows it's going to happen. He can't be sick. It's so much worse getting hit when he's sick, so Adam tries to swallow it down, tries to take a deep breath, tries to will his stomach to settle, as if begging has ever worked in the past.

He's alone in the garage, so there's something to be grateful for.

Everyone else has gone home.

He just has this one thing left to finish.

"Shit…" wobbles out under Adam's breath. He touches the back of his wrist to his forehead.

His hand is shaking.

His head is hot.

That's why he can't breathe - he's burning up.

He thinks he hears a low voice calling him from a distance. The edge of his vision flickers. Cabeswater is messing with him, trying to get his attention, and Adam squeezes his eyes closed, pulling in a shaky breath. He can't do this right now….

Something touches his arm.

Not the invisible coiling of phantom vines, or the barely-there brush of an icy hand. A legitimate, physical, firm touch right above his elbow. Fingers rasp at the fabric of his coveralls, lighting up the sensitive skin underneath, and Adam's wired body jumps. His arm swings wide, hits a solid chest. There's an inhuman squawk and the flapping of wings, and a colorful swear in all that commotion that comes from his right like it traveled the long way around to get to him.

Ronan has come up on his deaf side, probably without meaning to. Chainsaw, startled because Adam startled, left her perch on Ronan's shoulder in a hurry. She lights on top of the still-open hood of the car and croaks out another indignant, reproachful note at him, shuffling her wings back into order.

She cocks her head to give him the stink-eye.

Adam barely notices.

He pushed Ronan away as he stumbled back, and the sudden movement was too much for his stomach and his overwrought nerves to handle. Heat charges up his throat. Adam turns, puts one hand on the headlight of the car, bends over, and pukes. It splatters over his boots and the legs of his coveralls, the side of the car and the concrete floor. Adam is too busy heaving his guts out to care.

His legs shake, throat burning.

_ "Christ. Fuck." _

There's a hand on his hip, a weight pinning him against the car to keep him upright. Another hand scoops his short hair back from his face in a pointless gesture and then cups around his forehead, blissfully cold against his heated skin. Rough fingers brush against his cheek, leather bracelets tickling his neck.

It's a while before Adam remembers how to breathe without choking. His stomach is empty, but it still tightens and trembles and threatens to claws its way out of him again. He dry heaves a few more times, gasping, panting. Then it's over. Those hands are at his elbows again, turning him around, guiding him down to sit against the front of the car, away from the mess.

When he doesn't comply right away, Ronan's harsh voice grounds him.

"Sit down. For fuck's sake, Parrish."

The concrete is cold, once he gets down there. The relief it brings is swift. Adam feels like he's roasting from the inside out. His vision is blurry, gummy, until a palm rubs into his eye socket and wipes the tears away. Ronan's face is revealed - the sharp line of his nose, the downward pull of his mouth, the set of his jaw - the way his brow says  _ angry _ and his eyes say  _ worried. _

"Why the fuck are you here?" Ronan snarls. His teeth are bared, the back of his fingers unnervingly gentle as he touches Adam's face again. He withdraws his hand like he's actually been burned. "Gansey said you were taking it easy! Said you looked like shit today at school, wandering around like a goddamn zombie, and that you were going home to rest. What the fuck happened to resting?"

Adam doesn't know what's happening.

His boots are gone - tossed aside, the laces yanked loose - and his dirty socks exposed. Ronan's hands are pawing at him - snapping open the row of metal buttons down the front of his work coveralls with two quick peels and shoving them back off of his shoulders. The next thing Adam knows, his arms are out of the suit and Ronan's hands are in his pits, lifting him up to his feet like Adam weighs nothing.

The coveralls slip to his waist.

Ronan yanks them to his knees, then down to his feet, and Adam steps dumbly out of them.

Without the extra layer on, Adam realizes it was part of the problem. His t-shirt and jeans are damp with sweat and the air is that much colder when it sneaks under the folds of his clothes and hits his skin. Adam shivers. He leans back against the car for support, holding onto Ronan's arms for -

He wouldn't say comfort. ...Maybe.

Ronan is still bitching.

Adam's brain finally catches up with the past few minutes as his gaze strays toward the side of the car. The mess on the floor. The stench of bile stinging his nose. The deeply-ingrained fear that blots out all logic. He can hear his mother's voice -  _ Don't pretend to be sick just to get out of it, Adam _ \- and he can see his father's fist coming down. He feels the impact, same as always, and the monotony of it does not lessen the pain.

The trembling in his muscles intensifies.

"Fuck…" Adam gasps.

His poor, abused stomach writhes. It has nothing left to give, and it makes the effort anyway. Ronan turns from tossing the coveralls haphazardly across the nearest toolbox and looks at him sharply, his hand tightening around Adam's arm.

"If you puke on me, I swear to God, Parrish."

It's an exclamation rather than a threat.

Ronan pulls him up and Adam stumbles after his longer, quicker stride, dragged by Ronan's grip on his arm; out the open garage door and right into the bushes by the side of the pavement, where Adam kneels and his stomach riots a second time. He feels washed out and too hot, his whole body sore. Adam moans and puts his head against his knees.

Ronan's hand moves up and down his back. The motion is unexpected, to say the least. Unexpected that it soothes Adam's feverish mind and quaking body.

Unexpected that it's  _ Ronan. _

Adam stays on the ground, curled against his knees, long after the nausea eases up and the anxiety follows, and he's quieted down inside. All that's left is the heat muddying his thoughts and the exhaustion weighing him down.

Adam let's them.

He's too tired to put up a fight anymore. 

He let's Ronan help him up once he's sure he's not going to be sick again. He let's Ronan lead him to the BMW and sit him down in the passenger's seat with his legs still outside of it and the door propped open. The air feels nice and it's easier to breathe. Adam presses his burning forehead against the back of the seat and inhales the scent of the leather.

"If you're going to puke, do it outside of the car," Ronan says, leaving him there to go back inside, "Don't fucking ruin my seats."

"If you're that worried about it I can… drive myself home…"

He has to get his breath in the middle of it, but the comeback is solid. And empty. There's no way he's fit to drive like this. Adam doesn't even lift his head to glance forlornly toward where the Hondoyota is parked beneath the single streetlight.

Ronan scoffs at him, a laugh that echoes within the confines of the garage.

A dragging sound accompanies it.

"No fucking way you're driving anywhere," he says, echoing Adam's thoughts. The hiss of water drowns out anything else that might have been said.

Chainsaw flaps over to Adam's feet, chased out of the garage by the spray that blasts away the evidence of his unhappy digestive system. Adam watches the raven hop back and forth between the open door of the garage, the water flowing out and shimmering in the lights over the pavement, where Ronan plainly is - and the open door of the BMW, where Ronan should be.

She flaps her wings.  _ "Kerah!" _

Ronan says something over the sound of the water - Chainsaw's name, and something less comprehensible. She's sulking, as much as a raven is able to sulk.

She leaps up into Adam's lap and her talons pinch into the tough fabric of his jeans. Adam lifts a finger to stroke the feathers at the back of her head without thinking anything about it, and that's the last solid thing that he remembers.

Not the pulse of soft music as the car moves, the same rhythm again and again into infinity.

Not Ronan's explanation rumbling into both their chests, stirring up all kinds of unnamable things, as Adam is carried up to the second story of Monmouth Manufacturing and deposited on the nearest bed as the others crowd around them.

Not Gansey's bright, earnest hazel eyes too close to his face and the worried lift in his voice as he touches Adam's forehead with his own fussing hands, working himself up;  _ I'm going to get you some medicine and I don't want to hear a word about it. Of course you're staying here tonight, you stubborn thing! Just get your strength back, we're right here with you. _

Not Blue's low, comforting voice as she tucks the blanket up around him and puts a cold washcloth to his head, soothing back his hair until he falls asleep.

Not Noah's imperceptible weight on the mattress beside him long after the others are quiet.

These are small, unattainable comforts - at least, Adam used to think that's what they were - things he couldn't have, or didn't deserve. But it is Ronan's dream raven seeking solace in his presence that sticks with Adam the most. It has metastasized throughout his body and it will probably kill him. The violet-blue sheen in her feathers. The look in her eyes, intelligent and playful.

The thing about her that is inherently  _ Ronan. _

The thing that is mirrored inside of Adam that yearns, and yearns, and yearns.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Ya'll KNOW I love a good sickfic, so of course that's my starting line lmao. TRC grabbed me by the throat!!! Absolutely everything and more that I could possible love about a book serires. If you guys enjoyed this, please let me know! ♡
> 
> [my tumblr](http://bobtheacorn.tumblr.com)


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